Stop Motion

Simona Bordone: How and why did these video works in stop-motion come about?

Toni Meneguzzo: I have always worked with a Polaroid camera and learnt to manage the lighting for fashion shoots. Perfect lighting means perfect pictures. Working with a Polaroid camera is “pure”, it all comes down to the shot. When I started using a HD digital camera I realised I could take pictures really fast, six per second – today’s cameras can take 12 pictures per second. I thought of Muybridge and his outstanding photographic research, trying to render movement with what was, back then, a very new medium. I decided I wanted to try something similar.

S.B.: But you create videos.
T.M.: I made the first one at home “to see what would happen” and liked it. The result is syncopated, not as fluid as a video. I think it sits well with modern times.  

S.B.: Have these cameras changed you as a photographer?
T.M.: Not really. When I used the Polaroid 20x25 I didn’t go to a lab and I still don’t. I do it all myself, in a sort of open-air darkroom. I work with a hand camera as if it were a steadicam, shooting until I choke up the acquisition receptors, and I do some “Mickey Mouse” magic. 

S.B.: Mickey Mouse magic?
T.M.: I still see the photographer as a craftsperson. I might peg a piece of fabric to produce certain pleats, make up some card and wrap a scarf around it drawn by a cord, construct a fabric cylinder for a set or tone the light spectrum: this is my “magic”.

S.B.: Then comes the post production…
T.M.: I don’t do post production on photographs. I treat them like Polaroids – already complete. I simply arrange the sequence before the montage. I made a few small changes to the Fornasetti video because I wanted to augment the sense of play: in the mirrors and video screens, always problematical; I didn’t want the striped screen esthetic.
  Toni Meneguzzo (1949) is an Italian photographer. He introduced a unique technique of photo shooting using Polaroid in large format for fashion images. He collaborates with: all Vogue's editions, Harper's Bazaar, Harper & Queen, Arena, New York Times, Condé Nast Group publications. In 2000 he starts working in the design and architecture photography for the New York Times, AD China, AD Germany, AD Russia, AD France, Ad Italy, World of Interiors, AW Germany, Elle Decor, Residence, D Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, Case da Abitare. His latest personal project, Go Shala, is an anthropological research on the Hindu tradition of Holy Cows.

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